of 7,150 Sierra Leoneans with a legal status emigrated to the United States. After 1996, many Sierra Leoneans legally emigrate to the US thanks they had a refugee status and relatives residing in the US. By 1999, about 2,500 Sierra Leoneans had emigrate to the US annually, according to The United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The recent refugees tend to have lower education than earlier migrants, who have University degrees. Demography Currently, 80% of African Americans who are descendants of slaves have some ancestors that came from Bunce Island in Sierra Leonne. Most Sierra Leonean immigrants reside in the Baltimore- Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Other Sierra Leonean communities are settled in suburbs of Alexandria, Fairfax, Arlington, Falls Church, and Woodbridge in Virginia, and in Landover, Lanham, Cheverly, Silver Spring, and Bethesda in Maryland. There are also Sierra Leonean communities in the Boston and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, and in New Jersey, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, Oregon and Ohio. Most Sierra Leoneans are Muslims and practitioners of native cultures, but there are also many Christians. Sierra Leonean Americans communicate in English, either as a first or second language, due to the British colonial history. However, Krio is the lingua franca and primary language of communication among diverse groups of Sierra Leoneans living abroad although a few still speak tribal languages reflecting their unique heritage. Many Sierra Leonean residents in the USA work in two or three jobs to reach enough salary to help their families in their country, whilst some others have university degrees. Indeed, while some Sierra Leoneans arrived in the United States to pursue university studies, some are already holders of degrees from British universities or from Fourah Bay College in Freetown. Many Sierra Leoneans residing in the USA incorporate their children to secret organizations of Sierra Leonean origin, which teach them the cultures own of their tribes. Sierra Leonean Americans have also been helped by many former Peace Corps volunteers who worked in Sierra Leone. In the US, many Sierra Leoneans have established relationships (and have even intermarried) with people from other cultures and nationalities, especially with other African immigrants. Gullah and Geechee people The Gullah, or (in Georgia) Geechee, are descendants of slaves that were sent from Africa or since the Caribbean, particularly Barbados, to serve as free labor for the cultivation of rice, whose area of cultivation was the southeast coast of the modern